Department Of Self-parody

November 26, 2007

Ms. Rice, who had heralded the election as a symbol of the new
stirrings of democracy in the Middle East, was so blindsided by the
[Hamas] victory [in the Palestinian elections] that she was startled when she saw a crawl of words on her
television screen while exercising on her elliptical trainer the
morning after the election: “In wake of Hamas victory, Palestinian
cabinet resigns.”

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’” Ms.
Rice recalled. When the crawl continued, she got off the elliptical
trainer and called the State Department.